Sometimes I say to myself, You're crazy. You're throwing away 22 years of committed partnership for someone you've known six months.

Then I reply, I didn't have anything to throw away. Chris loves me, but he lost all romantic interest in me long before I met Grey, maybe even before I started transitioning. He decided to move out; I didn't ask him to. I think he would have done it eventually even if I hadn't started seeing someone else.

And I think, But my heart still cries out for him.

And I think, You'd be crazy not to take this chance with this wonderful new man. He's kind, he's smart, he's funny, he's sexy, he has a life, he gives you all the affection you've been starved for, he worships you.

And I come back with, But even still ... 22 years of history is nothing to sneeze at. There is secret language between me and Chris that will only die when our memories do. One of us can say "wood storks" or "Colm" or "Freddy Fender" or a hundred other things and it conjures up a very specific, very special memory, almost like a poem between the two of us -- a poem that we lived.